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MEV and transaction ordering
Understand how inclusion and ordering can affect the outcome of blockchain transactions.
The Token Press education desk · Reviewed 2026-09-08
Ordering has economic effects
Maximal extractable value describes value obtainable through control over transaction inclusion, exclusion or ordering beyond ordinary block rewards and fees. Arbitrage, liquidations and certain trading strategies can create such opportunities.
Not every instance has the same effect on users. Some activity aligns prices across venues, while strategies such as sandwiching can worsen a trader’s execution.
A simplified sandwich
Imagine a visible pending swap in a shallow pool. An actor may place one trade before it and another after it, benefiting from the price movement while the original trader receives a worse result within the transaction’s accepted constraints.
This illustration explains an ordering risk; it is not a claim that every swap experiences such a strategy. Pool depth, order flow and transaction protections affect outcomes.
What a user can evaluate
Inspect expected price impact, minimum output and available transaction-protection features. Private submission or other mechanisms can change who sees an order, but introduce their own assumptions and do not guarantee the best execution.
When reading MEV statistics, ask which chain, period and definition were used. Gross extracted value, searcher profit and a user’s execution loss are not interchangeable measurements. Understanding those distinctions helps prevent dramatic totals from becoming misleading explanations.
Sources & further reading
Educational content. Examples are illustrative. Consult the linked documentation for current details.